The "Middle East and Terrorism" Blog was created in order to supply information about the implication of Arab countries and Iran in terrorism all over the world. Most of the articles in the blog are the result of objective scientific research or articles written by senior journalists.

From the Ethics of the Fathers: "He [Rabbi Tarfon] used to say, it is not incumbent upon you to complete the task, but you are not exempt from undertaking it."

Friday, July 20, 2012

Read the article in the original עבריתRead the article in Italiano (translated by Yehudit Weisz, edited by Angelo Pezzana)

I will begin with a disclosure: I am the head of The Israeli Academic Monitor, an organization whose goal is to expose publicly the political activities of those Israeli academics who engage in activities against the state of Israel and against its ability to stand up to the political and security pressures that it faces. These academicians call on institutions and individuals to boycott Israel, to impose sanctions upon it and to withdraw investments from it, while camouflaging and disguising these activities as if they are done in "the academic spirit". It must be noted that there are, among Israeli academicians, some "righteous" people who call on states and academic institutions of the world to boycott Israeli academic institutions and to impose punishments on those same institutions in which they themselves are employed, and from where they receive their salaries, the source of which is the government of Israel. We, members of The Israeli Academic Monitor, out of concern for Israeli academia in particular and for the state of Israel in general, act within the boundaries of freedom of speech and expression, and publish widely the despicable deeds of these Israeli academicians.

Today I dedicate my article to a matter that has been with us for years, which is the status of the academic institution that was established 30 years ago in the city of Ariel, in Samaria; whether to have it remain as a college or "University Center" (a concept which is not clear to me), or perhaps to raise it to the level of a university. Those who are faithful to the land of Israel support promoting it to become a university, while those who object to Israeli rule in Judea and Samaria (they call it "occupation") oppose it. Each side of the argument brings economic, budgetary and academic justifications to support its view, but it is clear that the basis for one's position is primarily political, and that this position dictates which of the justifications are emphasized.

The fact that there is a political argument, engenders the perception among the Israeli public that all of the other seven universities are "not political", and only the institution in Ariel is "political" because it is "in the territories" and therefore its establishment in Ariel has a "political" meaning. My claim is that all of the universities in Israel are political, and moreover: all of the colleges, schools, yeshivas, hospitals, prisons, factories, places of residence, roads, trees - everything that we have established, built, and planted in Israel - everything, but everything, is political. The whole Zionist enterprise is a political project because it is the political and nationalistic manifestation of the desire of the Jewish people to return to its land and to renew within it its national life, its independence and its sovereignty. Everything that we have done here since the students of the Gaon of Vilna arrived in Israel two hundred years ago until today, everything is aimed at renewing our political life as of old, indeed, the whole Zionist enterprise - including universities - has a political, as well as national connotation, and there are also those who see a religious component in this matter, connected in some way to the final redemption.

Jews the world over have joined this great political enterprise of the Jewish people, whether with their bodies or with their wealth. Those who joined bodily came, fought, built, paved, planted, seeded, reaped, learned, taught and did research, all in order to establish the political enterprise of the Jewish people - the State of Israel. Those who joined with their wealth remained in the Diaspora and donated their money to the establishment of schools, hospitals, yeshivas for men, yeshivas for women, colleges and universities, all in order to take part in the political, national and collective endeavor of the people of Israel.

The cornerstone of the first academic institution in Israel was laid exactly 100 years ago. This was the Technion in Haifa. Dr. Paul Natan, was behind the idea to establish "the Technikum" (the original name), enlisted the aid of David Wissotzky (the Tea producer) to donate the required funds, and they established the institution specifically in Israel, and not in the Diaspora, for the same nationalistic and political reason that influenced others to establish other institutions in Israel. Their motivation was to promote the "return to Zion" and the fact that the government of the land was then in the hands of the Muslim Ottoman Empire didn't bother them. When they founded the first academic institution, their connection was to the Land, not the state, and to establish the life of the people in its land was their top priority.

The first university that was established in Israel, Hebrew University, was also, at first, in 1925, a political act that was intended - this time under the British Mandate - to show the whole world that the people of Israel is returning to its land and intends to live a full life here. But the academic act with the clearest and most political message was the establishment of the University of Tel Aviv in 1956, during the period of the fedayeen and the terror that they perpetrated. This university was deliberately established upon the ruins of the Arab village Sheikh Munis, an act which stated in a clear and lucid manner, that the people of Israel has returned to its land in order to build it and to be built up in it, and it will not yield or bend to its enemies or detractors, who fled in the defensive war of 1948.

The Weizman Institute is named for the noted Zionist political leader, who was also the first president of the state of Israel, and Ben Gurion University in the Negev until today, proudly carries the name of "the" politician par excellence who arose to lead the people of Israel in the modern era, and with his strength of spirit, established the state despite all odds. The University of Haifa was also established by a man from the boiling cauldron of Israeli politics, Aba Hushi, and the academic tower that rises almost 100 meters above the Carmel Mountain Ridge, and is clearly visible from a distance of dozens of kilometers, clearly states the nationalistic and political message that "We are here".

Only Bar Ilan University carries the name of Rabbi Meir Bar-Ilan, a religious, rather than political figure, who was one of the heads of the national-religious "Mizrachi" movement, and its establishment in 1955 was also a political and public message of religious Judaism.

The inescapable conclusion from all of the above is that all of the academic institutions in Israel are a political and nationalistic expression of the return of the people of Israel to its land and its revival after 1900 years of exile. Israeli academia is not separate from the overall Israeli experience, which is entirely a nationalistic, political deed. The return to Zion was not and is still not a natural development, but rather it is a phenomenon that is outside of nature, and involves an ongoing struggle against the natural environment. Any endeavor of this sort requires activity in the national arena, just as all of the activities connected with it, from the establishment of universities to the planting of trees, are activities that are conducted in the political arena as well. Therefore the names of institutions honor the political leaders who promoted the great achievement of the "return to Zion" in every sense of the phrase.

The fact that the world accepted Israeli academia as an equal member in the global academic community, stemmed from the consensus that included all of the Jewish people, in Israel as well as in the Diaspora, regarding the legitimacy of the state of Israel and its institutions, including the academic ones. This is no simple matter, since there are many countries in the world who do not see Israel as a legitimate state, which is why they boycott the academic institutions. The academic boycott of Israel by these states began in 1948, not in 1967, because the "occupation", in their eyes, includes Tel Aviv, Haifa, Jerusalem, Be'er Sheva and Ramat Gan, not only Ariel and Hebron.

On the agenda these days is the question of the academic institution in Ariel, a city in Israel, that was established on territory that was conquered in 1948 by the Arab Legion and until 1967 was occupied by Jordan, although Jordan's rule over this territory was never recognized by the world as legitimate. The world also does not recognize the legitimacy of Israeli rule there, and because no state has universally accepted sovereignty, this is not "occupied territory" but rather "disputed territory" according to international law. This fact has been known since 1967, and the report of Judge emeritus Edmond Levi again confirms this important legal fact. Just a reminder: the Technion and Hebrew University were not originally established under Israeli sovereignty because when they were established the state of Israel did not yet exist. One could say that the state of Israel won sovereignty over the land of Israel partly because of the existence of these institutions, which arose in the land of Israel together with other institutions. Is it not so, that the presence on Mount Scopus of the Hebrew University together with the Hadassah University Hospital, is the reason that this mountain remained under Israeli sovereignty even between 1948 and 1967, even though it was surrounded by the illegitimate Jordanian occupation?

On Tuesday of this week I received from the Council of Higher Education of Judea and Samaria, the decision to promote Ariel University Center to the status of "university", and I ask: why was this institution not established as a "university" in the first place, 30 years ago, in 1982, exactly like all of the other universities? When the cornerstone was laid for each one of the other universities, did they already have libraries, laboratories, researchers, staff members, publications, and international partnerships, so that they could be categorized from the start as "universities"?

And to anyone who is concerned about the Gordian Knot that exists between academia and politics, it is important to note that in the beginning of the month, UNESCO (United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization) recognized the Islamic University in Gaza as an institution suitable for academic partnership. I don't know what motivated this honorable organization to recognize a university that was established in territory occupied by a terror organization and which operates under its aegis, but my heart tells me that the matter stems from the economic difficulties of UNESCO, since the United States has ceased funding it, and it is trying to attract Arab oil revenues by recognizing the Islamic University in Gaza. Therefore, if it is permissible for the UN to recognize a university that is operated by a terror organization in territory which it conquered, why do the noble knights of Israeli academia not recognize a university that was established in territory that is not occupied and is administered by a democratic state?

But the most important political message is that which was sent by the Council of Higher Education of Judea and Samaria to our neighbors, which is that we in Israel are here to stay. We will not give in to pressure or to terror, we will not apologize for having returned to our land, and we will not yield our rights to do research and to study wherever we live, just as every other people in the world. We did not apologize for establishing the University of Tel Aviv upon the ruins of Sheikh Munis, and therefore there is no reason to apologize for establishing the University of Ariel in the desert. In the Middle East they accept only those who stand up for their rights and are ready to fight for them, because in this area, only those who are invincible live in peace. Moreover: we are willing to help our neighbors establish a university in any of the Arab cities of Judea and Samaria, in order to develop science and education, and to bring the message of progress to the area which needs it so badly: the Universities of Bir Zeit (near Ramallah) and al-Najah (in Nablus) received the status of university not while under Jordanian occupation but under Israeli "occupation", in the year 1977, and this carried a political message as well, both to Israelis and to the heads of these institutions.

Conclusion: the establishment of a university in any location is an act charged with political significance, and therefore there is no justification for criticizing any specific institution with the accusation that its establishment is a political act. So to all of those who criticize Ariel University I say: look in the mirror, and as we know, those who live in glass houses should not throw stones.

===============

Dr. Mordechai Kedar (Mordechai.Kedar@biu.ac.il) is an Israeli scholar of Arabic and Islam, a lecturer at Bar-Ilan University and the director of the Center for the Study of the Middle East and Islam (under formation), Bar Ilan University, Israel. He specializes in Islamic ideology and movements, the political discourse of Arab countries, the Arabic mass media, and the Syrian domestic arena.

Source: The article is published in the framework of the Center for the Study of the Middle East and Islam (under formation), Bar Ilan University, Israel. Also published in Makor Rishon, a Hebrew weekly newspaper.

July 18, 2012,Washington, D.C.: Senator John McCain weighed in today on an intensifying controversy concerning the influence being exercised within the U.S. government by Muslim Brotherhood-associated individuals and organizations. In his remarks, the Arizona legislator assailed five of his House colleagues – Reps. Michele Bachmann, Louie Gohmert, Trent Franks, Lynn Westmoreland and Tom Rooney – and an online video curriculum produced by the Center for Security Policy, The Muslim Brotherhood in America: The Enemy Within (www.MuslimBrotherhoodinAmerica.com).

Unfortunately, in so doing, Sen. McCain made clear that he: had not actually reviewed the curriculum; was unfamiliar with its extensive documentation of a stealthy “civilization jihad” being mounted against this country, its civil society institutions and government; and misrepresented its findings. By contrast, with the benefit of that resource and their own extensive research, the Representatives wrote the State Department Inspector General, Amb. Harold Geisel, making the factual observation that his agency has recently adopted a number of policies that are “enormously favorable to the Muslim Brotherhood and its interests.” They went on to characterize those policies as ones that are “deeply problematic and may even pose security risks for this nation, its people and interests.” (The five Members of Congress also sent similar letters to the IGs of the Departments of Justice, Defense and Homeland Security and the Office of the Director of National Intelligence. http://bachmann.house.gov/news/documentsingle.aspx?DocumentID=303218.)

The legislators requested that the Inspector General “conduct a formal investigation or evaluation of the extent to which Muslim Brotherhood-tied individuals and entities have helped achieve the adoption of these State Department actions and policies or are involved in their execution.”

One of those actions was the Secretary of State's February 2010 visit to Dar Al-Hekma College in Jedda, Saudi Arabia. On that occasion, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton demonstrated her support for the views and achievements of the college’s founder, Dr. Saleha Mahmood Abedin, the mother of Mrs. Clinton’s Deputy Chief of Staff, Huma Abedin.

In the interest of exploring Dr. Abedin’s policy recommendations, the Center for Security Policy today extended to her the attached invitation to participate in a dialogue. A particular focus of this dialogue would be to illuminate attitudes towards shariah espoused by the organization with which Dr. Abedin has long been associated: the International Islamic Committee for Woman and Child. She has also been identified as a leader in Saudi Arabia of the Muslim Sisterhood.

Center for Security Policy President Frank J. Gaffney, Jr. said, “Congresswoman Bachmann and her colleagues have rendered a tremendous public service by raising an alarm about the dangers posed by the Muslim Brotherhood’s ‘civilization jihad.’ Far from being chastised for doing so, by Sen. McCain or others, they should be applauded and aided in their efforts to have the extent of Brotherhood influence operations properly investigated by Inspectors General and/or congressional committees. We very much hope that a conversation with Dr. Abedin will help inform such deliberations.”

In recent weeks, opponents of voter ID laws have escalated their attacks on the measures by claiming the common sense requirement that a voter be able to identify him or herself at the polls is a new form of Jim Crow. But since the measure applies equally to everyone and the Supreme Court has ruled such laws are constitutional their charges have more to do with inciting racial discord than actually affirming the right to vote. At the same time others are seeking to undermine the entire premise of voter ID advocates by claiming there is no such thing as voter fraud in the United States. That’s the conceit of a piece in the Daily Beast today that repeats the charge made by liberal and Democratic foes of the laws that there is no evidence of voter fraud going on anywhere in the country.

But on the same day the Beast piece was published, evidence surfaced that union officials in Wisconsin have been subpoenaed in an investigation of, you guessed, voter fraud. As the Washington Free Beacon reports, the DA’s office demanded the Service Employees International Union (SEIU) hand over records that relate to the conduct of their officials who may have voted in the city earlier this year while using a Marriot hotel as a residence and using out of state IDs. The Wisconsin legislature passed a photo ID law but state courts have blocked its enforcement so the lack of such a requirement and a same day registration process that makes it easy for anyone, including those who aren’t legally qualified to vote there, cast a ballot. All of which makes a good argument for exactly the laws that liberals tell us are not only racist but also unnecessary.

While the Daily Beast tells us that a voter is more likely to be struck by lightening than commit fraud, that conclusion doesn’t hold up when you consider that several Philadelphia precincts have reported vote totals in heavily Democratic districts that exceeded 100 percent of the tally of registered voters. It was that practice that motivated the Pennsylvania legislature to pass a voter ID law there. Moreover, the idea that fraud is unheard of not only contradicts much of American political history but also an elementary knowledge of human nature which tells us that where there is something to be gained (such as the unions’ hope that Governor Scott Walker would be defeated in a recall election), people will cheat if they think they can get away with it. That’s especially true when the stakes are as high as they are in many elections.

Believing that the concept of voter fraud is itself a fraud only requires that you ignore what happened in Wisconsin or the routine trickery that remains a standard part of election hijinks any time or place that politicians believe no one is watching. Given the unfortunate timing of the Daily Beast piece, opponents of voter ID laws will probably do better sticking to specious allegations of racism than by pretending that cheating is a myth.

Editors of newspapers from far and wide had no problem grasping the relative news value of what happened on July 18 in Damascus and in a seaside resort in Bulgaria.

The top story obviously was the Syrian rebels' deadly bombing of Assad's inner circle, wiping out his top security leadership. It was a transformative event that dramatically demonstrated the rebels' ability to bring their revolution to the heart of the Assad regime. The dictator suddenly has become highly vulnerable.

The second story, also widely played out on front pages, was the deadly terrorist attack on Israeli vacationers in Burgas, Bulgaria, on the Black Sea. With Israel blaming Iran, this obviously also was top news -- and easily qualified for the second spot on front pages.

But not at the Washington Post, which bumped the slaughter of Israelis to the back page. "Blast kills at least six Israelis on a bus in Bulgaria: Netanyahu blames Iran" bottom of page A18).

Post editors attached more importance to a poll about the mayor of Washington, D.C., the oil boom in North Dakota, Sen. McCain's defense of a Clinton aide tied by some Republicans to the Muslim Brotherhood, and Britain's obesity problems on the eve of the Olympics. Each of these stories topped in significance the murder of six Israelis in Bulgaria.

Actually, one shouldn't be too surprised by this example of atrocious news judgment by the Washington Post. The paper consistently downplays or even ignores terror attacks against Israeli civilians, whether from Gaza, the West Bank or places beyond the Middle East.

To make matters even worse, Karin Brulliard, the Post's Jerusalem bureau chief, plays the equivalence game in her dispatch, putting Israel and Iran on the same enmity scale. Here's how she puts it:

"Israel and Iran are bitter enemies that have been engaged in an escalating rhetorical battle and, security analysts say, a covert war of attacks and assassinations."

Somebody needs to inform Brulliard that Iran repeatedly has vowed to wipe Israel off the map -- and one of its former presidents, Ali Rafsanjani, even suggested this could be accomplished with a single nuclear bomb. By contrast, Israel never has threatened to wipe Iran off the map. Contrary to Brulliard's formulation, the conflict between Iran and Israel is not a neatly symmetrical proposition - a simple game of tit for tat. It's an asymmetrical affair--- with Iran making no bones about its agenda to eliminate the Jewish state, while Israel poses no such threat to Iran.

Leo Rennert is a former White House correspondent and Washington bureau chief of McClatchy Newspapers

The Washington Guardian just released a July 9 video (below) featuring Acting ATF Director B. Todd Jones warning agents not to step outside the chain of command.

Jones, a Minnesota U.S. Attorney and Holder crony, was tapped by the Attorney General to step in after former acting ATF Director Kenneth Melson was ousted and reassigned over his role in Operation Fast and Furious.

Jones told the Washington Post he was "excited" about restoring morale at the embattled Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives.

Veteran agents who have watched this explosive video interpreted Jones' latest in a series of 'Changecasts' as a warning to keep their mouths shut.

Choices and consequences simply means that, as an employee of ATF, should you decide not to abide by the standards of conduct or the rules of the road, should you decide that you're not going to play by the rules, there will be consequences.

Choices and consequences means simply that if you make poor choices, that if you don't abide by the rules, that if you don't respect the chain of command, if you don't find the appropriate way to raise your concerns to your leadership, there will be consequences because we cannot tolerate, we cannot tolerate an undisciplined organization.

Sen. Charles Grassley, R-Iowa, a leading figure in the Fast and Furious investigation was outraged that Jones "a leader of a major organization of any department, particularly law enforcement, would have the temerity to make those sort of comments...You can't put up with agency heads like this having this attitude."

The Jones video comes just days after the Washington Guardian reported the DOJ withheld vital memos from congressional investigators regarding Fast and Furious whistleblowers.

It appears the DOJ and the White House are going to extraordinary lengths to cover up an operation they supposedly knew nothing about.

Bruno's and Galileo's findings had run counter to Scripture at a time when a culture of strict orthodoxy held sway,when not only society but scientific truths were subordinated to what the religious establishment believed to be religious truths.

A few days ago, en route to the south of Italy, where the cultural climate is less influenced by Europe than it is by the Mediterranean, there was a row even before the plane took off, a heated exchange between the Italian chief steward and two Egyptian sheikhs wearing the robes of Egypt's premier religious university, Al-Azhar. The dispute had erupted over where the two sheikhs were to sit: the steward insisted they sit in their assigned seats in the economy class, while they insisted on moving to business class seats. When, as the conscripted interpreter of last resort, I explained that they had to sit on the seats specified on their tickets, they expressed their extreme displeasure at what they called European arrogance and inflexibility. There was eventually no choice but to point out that as they had paid for economy class tickets, they had no right to business class seats. This seemed to incense them even further; their anti-European tirade grew even more ferocious. The situation was finally resolved by the captain, who explained to his enraged passengers that they had only two options: either to sit in their assigned seats or to get off the plane. Acknowledging defeat, the Azharites accepted the first, and settled into the economy class seats they had paid for.

Returning to my seat, I recalled another Azharite sheikh who had travelled to Europe in 1826 as an escort and mentor of a group of young Egyptians sent by Mohamed Ali to study in a number of French institutes of learning. A luminary of Egypt's intellectual regeneration in the nineteenth century, Sheikh Rifaa Rafii al-Tahtawi [1801-1873] lived in France for five years. After his return in 1831, he wrote a number of books introducing Egyptian readers to the civilization and culture he had known during his five-year sojourn in Paris, the most impressive of which are Takhlis al-ibriz fi talkhis bariz, Al-murshid al amin fi tarbiyat al-banat wa al-banin and Manahij al-albab al-misriyya fi manahij al-adab al-casriyya. In addition to his own writings, Tahtawi translated more than twenty-five books from French into Arabic. This great Azharite, despite going to France not as a student but as the spiritual preceptor, or imam, of the mission, used his time to delve deeply into a variety of subjects. Blessed with a curious and contemplative mind, as well as with a wholesome personality, Tahtawi was a great admirer of the achievements of Western civilization, not only in the field of applied sciences but also in the cultural, intellectual and moral fields. He was apparently particularly impressed with the importance accorded to modern education in Europe; the respect in which men held women; the plans and cleanliness of the towns; the integrity of Europeans, and their solid work ethic.

The incident on the Cairo to Rome flight underscored a serious flaw in the cultural foundation of the two Azharite sheikhs. Although apparently living in Rome for five years, neither spoke any language other than Arabic. Moreover, they could see none of the merits of Western civilization. In direct contrast to their insularity, Tahtawi learned to speak French fluently even though he could not speak a word of it before 1826. In fact, he learned the French alphabet on the ship taking the mission from Alexandria to Marseilles. What he admired most in France, he said, was democracy, respect for the individual, respect for women and the great importance accorded to education and learning. The two Azharite sheikhs on the plane, who refused to observe the rules of civilized behavior, were the antithesis of their great precursor, Rifaa Rafii al-Tahtawi, a man able to appreciate and celebrate not only his own great civilization, but also the achievements and contributions of other great civilizations, from the time of the earliest, whether it was on the banks of the Nile, or on the banks of the Tigris and Euphrates in the land now known as Iraq.

In southern Italy, at the extreme southern tip, stands the town of Brindisi (the name in Latin means the "deer's antlers"), which overlooks the Adriatic. There you can see a portrait of the outstanding Italian scientist Galileo Galilei that should cause a pang in your heart if you compare the debased cultural environment we are living under in Egypt today and that in which the great scientist [1564-1642] lived. Known in advanced societies as the father of modern science, Galileo, in his 70s, was put on trial on charges of heresy for saying that the Earth goes around the sun -- a "crime" for which his predecessor, Giordano Bruno, a few years earlier, had been burned alive at the stake. Galileo was taken to a dungeon where he was shown the instruments of torture that would be used on him unless he recanted; and spent the rest of his life not allowed to leave his house. Bruno's and his findings had run counter to Scripture at a time when a culture of strict religious orthodoxy held sway, when not only society but scientific truths were subordinated to what the religious establishment believed to be religious truths.

In France, Tahtawi was captivated by what he saw in the way of freedom, progress and the respect in which women were held. It was there that he came to believe that allowing women to mix freely with men and their freedom and modern way of dressing did not necessarily lead to decadence and degeneracy. The enlightened sheikh liked seeing men and women dance together, and described dancing as "an art form that does not [necessarily] imply licentiousness."

One of the most profound observations he made about Europeans in his book, Takhlis al-ibriz fi talkhis bariz, reads as follows: "Their minds [and not a religious text] determined that justice and equity are among the reasons for the prosperity of kingdoms and the comfort of humans." There is no doubt that Tahtawi was a product of the brilliant modernization project launched by Mohamed Ali.

As for the two Azharite sheikhs on the plane, they are clearly products of an altogether different evolutionary stage, one marked by intellectual sterility, superficiality of knowledge, mental stagnation, cultural regression and mentalities mired in the Dark Ages. The thought processes of those infected with this mindset are full of serious defects, the most dangerous being that they do not believe in diversity or in the acceptance of the Other, and they are intolerant of any opinion that differs from their own, inasmuch as they believe they are the holders of Absolute Truth.

Then there is their antiquated attitude towards women, who are denied any margin of religious or cultural tolerance. The mentality of these sheikhs is one of submission and conformity that does not celebrate, indeed, that suppresses, critical thinking and creativity. Deep down, they do not subscribe to the notion of common humanity: the world in their eyes is divided into "us" (the world of Islam) and "them" (the world of war). It is a division that is inimical not only to the notion of humanity but to any notion of world peace.

As European nations seek economic lifelines, the Germans have a financial history lesson for Europe, America and the rest of the world. It's found in a revealing self-critical painting, "Eclipse of the Sun," created by a 1920s Berlin artist, George Grosz, which hangs at the Heckscher Museum of Art in Huntington.

Few understand better than the Germans how economic self-destruction can bring a nation and the world to the edge of abyss. The crushing debt imposed on them at the end of World War I led to unprecedented hyperinflation as they monetized their obligations, running their printing presses to create millions of worthless marks.

Middle-class Germans became destitute as their life savings could no longer buy so much as a loaf of bread, much less secure their retirement. So corrosive was this monetized debt that the marginal Nazi Party, initially dismissed as a group of anti-Semitic street thugs, was voted into office by 1932. That is why Grosz's post-World War I painting remains so powerful almost a century later. His contorted caricatures capture the revealing self-loathing of an economic and political landscape that would ultimately lead to the rise of the Third Reich.

"Monetizing debt" may sound like economists' jargon, but it is an economy's ultimate poison pill when politicians print money to cover government deficits rather than engage in difficult policy decisions. Argentina, Thailand and Zimbabwe have all used this strategy, and it consistently led to chaos.

In the America of 2012, far too few appreciate the perils to our citizenry from a national debt in excess of $15 trillion and more than $60 trillion in unfunded liabilities. Some, such as former presidential hopeful Ron Paul, have suggested we return to the Gold Standard, a proposal that would be a difficult strategy to even consider, given our limited gold reserves. A far more rational idea is for us to get off the Debt Standard, but Washington can't seem to agree on any course of action.

Economic policy has become a captive of politics, particularly in the House of Representatives, where a two-year term guarantees distraction by a constant campaign for re-election.

There was a time when if you were a Democrat, it was a given that you favored significant deficits for "pump priming" and expanded social programs. If you were a Republican, you advocated for lower taxes and the forces of a free market to create jobs and power the economy. There was room for compromise and negotiation. Our current political environment has become so venomous that an ideological holy war is holding hostage a bipartisan resolution of the debt crisis. We have become incapable of governing through compromise.

There needs to be a dramatic and strategic response to this institutional paralysis. History has repeatedly taught us that otherwise rational people have turned to monetizing debt to achieve a political "quick fix" -- an action the Federal Reserve has undertaken since 2008 by printing new currency to buy up bonds. Voters need to alert elected officials on both sides of the aisle that they will judge them on their ability to resolve this emergency.

Meanwhile, though the ongoing European debt crisis seems irrelevant to our own lives, were Europe's economy to freeze, the results would be immediate and devastating here. Unlike the Germans who now practice budgetary austerity with the pursuit of a converted zealot, there is little in our collective experience that allows us to appreciate the depth of the danger.

History has taught that the collapse of strong nations has traditionally occurred from strategic failures within. It's a powerful lesson that our founders tried to instill in future generations when Patrick Henry offered, "I know of no way of judging the future but by the past." Consider it a warning that our nation is in danger from a runaway debt that has the power to eclipse the sun.

Lawrence Kadish, a Long Island real estate investor, is a trustee of the Gatestone Institute, a public policy think tank in Manhattan.

Elections are won by demographics. No soup company blindly dumps cans of its newest “Turkey Coconut Bouillon with Nutmeg and Omega 3″ in Aisle 6 of the supermarket without testing to see what demographics such a hideous concoction might appeal to. Will the product appeal to lesbian single mothers, divorced Asian firefighters or eccentric Latvian millionaires? Politics is no different.

A political party has its base, definable groups who groove to its message, who eat up the red meat that its candidates toss their way. It has the demographic groups which will always vote for it and those who might swing its way. It knows them by race, gender, age, class, sexuality, home ownership and a thousand other statistical slices of the pie. It has those numbers broken down by states, cities and neighborhoods so that it has a good estimate of its chances in a given place and time based on the demographics of the people who live there.

This kind of information is helpful for winning elections– but showing up to play the electoral hand you’re dealt is for suckers. And by suckers, I mean conservative parties.

Breaking down the demographics is like looking at the cards in your hand. Once you’ve done that, the only remaining variable in a static game are your opponent’s cards. With election demographics, players can see all the cards everyone has. That makes the game static. Hands will inevitably be won or lost… unless you can draw some new cards.

The most obvious way to play the demographic Game of Thrones is with gerrymandered districts. A gerrymandered district is shaped to include a majority of the winning demographic leading to a nearly automatic victory for the party. It’s the political equivalent of stacking the deck.

Gerrymandered districts are of dubious legality, except when shaped to create a majority-minority district, in which case it becomes an obligation under civil rights laws. This stacks the deck, creating permanent sinecures for some horribly incompetent politicians and permanent seats for the Democratic Party.

But that is just a matter of rearranging the cards in the deck. What if you could bring in cards from outside the deck? What if you could change the value of some cards? Then you would be on the way to being the best cardsharp in Washington D.C. or London or Paris.

Sure you could win elections by creating a few gerrymandered districts, but you couldn’t win a country that way. To do that, you have to change the national demographics.

Suppose you were running our fictional soup company and you discovered that “Turkey Coconut Bouillon with Nutmeg and Omega 3″ isn’t popular with key demographics. The only people who like it are unemployed Pakistani immigrants, lesbian single mothers and divorced Asian firefighters.

Sure you could take a shot at putting out another flavor, but damn it, you like this one. And you also spent your entire advertising budget for the next three years promoting it, and thanks to your ad campaign, everyone now associates your company with “Turkey Coconut Bouillon with Nutmeg and Omega 3″. And if people don’t like it, then your company is doomed.

You could try to change people’s minds, or you could try to change the demographics to ones that favor your soup. To do that, you would have to bring in a lot of Pakistani immigrants, create a poor economic climate, promote divorce and homosexuality, and create some public sector jobs.

Luckily, no soup company can do that sort of thing. But governments can.

That’s the neat thing about governments, if they want to change national demographics, bring in more immigrants, create more single-parent families and more unemployment, they can do all those things easily.

Suppose that your statistics show that unemployed people are more likely to vote for you than the employed. Then your goal would be to shift as many of those who ordinarily wouldn’t vote you from the ranks of the employed to those of the unemployed. And once they were on benefits, they might just come to support you, even though you were the one who maneuvered to deprive them of their employment.

That sort of thing is childishly easy to do if you happen to have a government and a party with extensive partnerships with progressive non-profits and powerful think-tanks and foundations.

Say that workers in factories were 40 percent less likely to vote your way and 80 percent more likely to disapprove of your core “Turkey Coconut Bouillon with Nutmeg and Omega 3″ agenda, while only 19 percent of unemployed workers who used to have jobs in factories vote against you and only 56 percent of them are against your core agenda– and they don’t even care much about it anymore because their lives have been turned upside-down and they’re not sure of anything anymore.

There’s an easy answer. Just start shutting down factories on any pretext. Accuse them of pollution, increase their costs, tax, inspect them to death, and do everything you can to transform the domestic working-class that used to be your base, before you went too far left, into unemployed men sitting bitterly drinking beer while wondering what happened to their country.

Suppose that your soup is called Barack Hussein Obama. In a 2008 taste test, 39 percent of working- class white men chose your soup. But in 2012, only 29 percent are willing to choose your soup. That’s a problem, when people choose their government… but not a problem when governments choose their people.

If working-class white men are a problem for you, then you have to make sure that a smaller percentage of your electorate consists of white men who haven’t gone to college.

Can’t win elections with your current agenda in a country with the current makeup? Dream big, plan even bigger. Drag everyone you can into college, import the right sort of immigrants, make divorce as common as possible, kill jobs. Don’t start now. Start doing it forty or fifty years ago. Turn Leave It to Beaver into Modern Family and suddenly the liberals will stop looking like commie egghead freaks and the conservatives will start looking like square robotic freaks who keep talking about someone they call “God,” something they call a “Traditional Family” and something they describe as “Jobs.”

Bertolt Brecht wrote, “Some party hack decreed that the people had lost the government’s confidence and could only regain it with redoubled effort. If that is the case, would it not be simpler if the government simply dissolved the people and elected another?”

Brecht’s sarcasm is now literal truth. Western governments are dissolving their peoples and electing other peoples in their place. Democracy allows peoples to elect governments, but power also allows governments to elect a people.

The left has decided that it can win the demographic Game of Thrones by changing the demographics. The left changes the terrain, while the right keeps trying to fight on the new terrain. And the only way to do that is by going to the left. The right still wins elections, but the left is winning the war for the future. It is shaping the electorate demographics that favor it. To win the future, it doesn’t have to win every election; all it has to do is keep changing the demographics until either the right cannot have any hope of winning any more or until the right is so far left that there no longer is anything that can be described as an opposition.

Demographics is destiny. The left is reshaping countries to match its demographic targets. It is turning nations into one great gerrymandered district composed of populations that are more likely to support it. It is doing this using immigration, economics, social policy and every tool at its disposal. And if conservatives don’t start understanding the demographic game of thrones, then they will lose the war.

Israel will stop Syrian refugees from entering the Golan Heights if they try to flee there, Defense Minister Ehud Barak said Thursday, while on a tour of the area amid the ongoing crisis in Syria.

Barak told reporters that Syrian refugees, who have already started fleeing to Turkey and Jordan, might also start fleeing toward the Israeli-held territory.

"If we have to stop waves of refugees, we will stop them," he said.

Barak also repeated the military's assessment that the Golan area could become a haven for militant groups. In his comments to reporters, Barak restated Israel's frequently voiced fear that, in the chaos, Syrian weapons would fall in the hands of Lebanese Hezbollah terrorists.

"After the possible collapse of the Assad regime, Hezbollah will try to move advanced weapons systems from Syria to Lebanon, including heavy surface-to-surface missiles and chemical weapons, and we are closely monitoring this," Barak said.

He said that Wednesday's suicide bombing in Damascus and the escalating violence in the country "shows how Syria's disintegration is not abstract, it is real, it is coming, and what happened yesterday in Damascus will greatly accelerate the fall of the Assad family."

"This is a heavy blow also for the radical axis which includes the Iranians and Hezbollah, who are the only supporters of the Assad family," Barak said.

He noted that Syrian rebels are becoming bolder in their actions, saying, "The more the rebels become disorganized, the more daring they are. They are already holding large parts of Syria and they freely enter into clashes around the country, including in big cities such as Damascus."

Meanwhile, a Syrian security source said the suicide bomber who killed three of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad's top security and military officials at a meeting of ministers on Wednesday was a bodyguard for the president's inner circle.

The bomb killed Assad's powerful brother-in-law, the defense minister and a top general, bringing the battle to the heart of Assad's powerbase and sparking fighting across Damascus.

The unprecedented blow to the ruling dynasty could mark a turning point in the civil war, suggesting that those once close to Assad are turning against him. The bombing follows some of the worst bloodshed in Damascus of the 17-month uprising, a growing list of high-ranking defections and mounting frustration by world leaders over their inability to find a diplomatic solution.

Rebels claimed responsibility for the attack, saying they had been planning it for two months.

State television said Defense Minister Gen. Daoud Rajiha and Assad's brother-in-law, Deputy Defense Minister Assef Shawkat, had been killed in a "terrorist bombing," and pledged to wipe out the "criminal gangs" responsible. It also said Gen. Hassan Turkmani, a former defense minister and senior military official, had died later of his wounds. Intelligence chief Hisham Bekhtyar and Interior Minister Mohammad Ibrahim al-Shaar were wounded but in "stable" condition.

A day after the suicide bombing, mystery surrounded the whereabouts of Assad as rebels closed in on the center of Damascus, vowing to "liberate" the capital. The Syrian leader made no public appearance and no statement after the bombing.

Some reports said Assad had left Damascus by helicopter and was staying in the port city of Latakia. His wife Asma reportedly fled to Russia. The Syrian Defense Ministry rejected the reports.

By the early hours of Thursday, residents had reported no let-up in the heaviest fighting to hit the capital in fighting against Assad's rule. The fighting came within sight of the presidential palace, near the security headquarters where the bomber struck a crisis meeting of defense and security chiefs.

Intense clashes were reported in the capital's central districts of Mezze and Kafar Souseh, while a police station in the Hajar al-Aswad district was in flames. The army was shelling its own capital from the surrounding mountains as night fell. Government troops, having vowed retaliation for the assassination, fired machine guns into the city from helicopters.

Washington, which fears a spillover into neighboring states, said the situation seemed to be spinning out of control. Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said "the decisive fight" was under way in Damascus.

The U.N. Security Council put off a scheduled vote on a Syria resolution and U.S. President Barack Obama phoned President Vladimir Putin of Russia, Assad's main protector, to try to persuade Moscow to drop support for him.

"As we continue to pursue the political option the realities on the ground may have overtaken us, therefore I think the clock is ticking and have we ... reached the point where the political option is too late?" King Abdullah of Jordan said in an interview with CNN. "I think we should continue to give politics their due, but if we haven't already passed that window I think we are getting very close to it."

The generals killed and wounded in the bombing form the core of Assad's crisis unit to crush the revolt, which grew out of protests inspired by Arab Spring uprisings that unseated leaders in Tunisia, Egypt and Libya.

The armed forces Chief of Staff, Gen. Fahad Jassim al-Freij, quickly took over as defense minister to avoid giving any impression of official paralysis.

"This cowardly terrorist act will not deter our men in the armed forces from continuing their sacred mission of pursuing the remnants of these armed terrorist criminal gangs," Freij said on state television. "They will cut off every hand that tries to hurt the security of the nation or its citizens."

The explosion appeared to be part of a coordinated assault on the capital that has escalated since the start of the week. Rebel fighters call it the "liberation of Damascus" after months of fierce clashes which activists say have killed 17,000 people.

"This is the final phase. They will fall very soon," Abdelbasset Seida, a leader of the opposition Syrian National Council, told Reuters in Qatar. "Today is a turning point in Syria's history. It will put more pressure on the regime and bring an end very soon, within weeks or months."

Ahmad Zaidan, spokesman for the Higher Council of the Revolution's Leadership, an opposition group, said the blast was a major blow to the morale of the army. The opposition estimates that some 50,000 out of 280,000 soldiers had deserted.

"It's the beginning of the breaking of the chain, the regime has lost control now and those around Bashar al-Assad, on whom he relied, are gone. The regime's foundations have been shaken. It's just Bashar now who's left," said Zaidan.

Rebels were jubilant at their success in penetrating into the capital and at the deaths of the security chiefs. Abdullah al-Shami, a rebel commander based in Turkey, said: "I expect a speedy collapse of the regime ... and it means we will not be in need of outside intervention, with the regime beginning to crumble much faster than we envisaged."

Yet some opposition figures said victory would still not be easy.

"It is going to be difficult to sustain supply lines and the rebels may have to make a tactical withdrawal at one point, like they did in other cities," veteran opposition activist Fawaz Tello said from Istanbul. "But what is clear is that Damascus has joined the revolt."

Zoubi said Qatari, Saudi, Turkish and Israeli agents were accountable for the terrorist bombing, according to the report.

The attack is "the last chapter of the U.S.-Western-Israeli conspiracy against Syria," Zoubi was quoted by SANA as saying, adding that Syria's enemies are wrong in their assessment of the strength of the strength of Syria's army.

"Unfortunately, Zionist and American agents received help and collaborated with Saudi and Qatari intelligence agencies, who are just as responsible for this act," he said.

Zoubi added Arab and Western governments were "legally, politically and morally responsible for the killing, assassination and sabotage acts taking place in Syria" by "sending money and arms to the terrorists," and they "will be punished for their crimes."

FrontPage Editors’ note: Senator John McCain (R-AZ) has denounced Congresswoman Michele Bachmann (R-MN) for including Hillary Clinton’s top aide, Huma Abedin, among those she has noted for having Muslim Brotherhood ties in her recent call for government agencies to investigate the Brotherhood ‘s penetration of Washington. Robert Spencer’s article in this issue crystallizes why McCain is wrong, and Bachmann is right, on this matter.

On this occasion, Frontpage’s editors have deemed it important to reprint a Frontpage interview (from our June 24, 2011 issue) with Walid Shoebat about The Dark Muslim Brotherhood World of Huma Abedin. The disturbing facts that Shoebat reveals in the interview, which appears below, legitimize Bachmann’s concerns.

Frontpage Interview’s guest today is Walid Shoebat, a former PLO terrorist and Muslim Brotherhood activist who is the author of the new book For God or For Tyranny.

FP: Walid Shoebat, welcome to Frontpage.

Shoebat: Thanks for having me.

FP: You were the first to break the news on Huma Abedin, Anthony Weiner’s wife, being linked to her mother Saleha Abedin, who, as you have exposed, has ties to the Muslim Brotherhood.

First, let me ask you: how credible are your sources?

Shoebat: Al-Liwa Al-Arabi (translated here) leaked an extensive list, which was partially published by Al-Jazeera and several other major Arab newspapers. The detailed list included Huma’s mother, Saleha Abedin.

This becomes an issue since Huma sits in the U.S. State Department with eyes and ears to classified government secrets. Was Huma unaware of all this as she accompanied Hillary Clinton to the Dar El-Hekma women’s college in Jedda-Saudi Arabia? Huma’s mother is the co-founder and a Vice Dean at the college and an active missionary on issues regarding Muslim women and is considered by the Egyptian security services as a dangerous member of the Muslim Brotherhood.

FP: What would you say to those who would argue that the Sisterhood organization is a farce and that the Egyptian Al-Dostor broke the news but that there is nothing really to substantiate this case?

Shoebat: The “Women’s Division” within the Muslim Brotherhood can be found at the Muslim Brotherhood’s official website. Here is an excerpt of its goal translated from Arabic states:

“The Womens Organization’s goal in accordance with the Muslim Brotherhood rules, is to gain and acquire a unified global perception in every nation in the world regarding the position of women, and the necessity of advocacy work at all levels in accordance to the message of the Brotherhood as written in Women in Muslim Society, and the rearing of women throughout the different stages of life.”

Al-Dostor’s article is confirmed by top experts in Egypt including the Arab Center for Studies, headed by researcher Abdul Rahim Ali. That with the Muslim Brotherhood’s own official statement gives us a solid case that this clandestine group called The Sisterhood exists, very active and very influential. So influential that they succeeded in getting Hillary Clinton to speak alongside two of its members; Abedin and Suheir Qureshi were also listed as members by several major Arab sources.

Then we have the links, which shows damning evidence that this list was not created haphazardly. We did the research which we shall release shortly; so many of who are on the list are official members or wives/daughters of members ranging from spies, Nazi-style propagandists, Nazi affiliates from the Brotherhood’s inception, Hijab advocates in Europe, and prominent conspiracy theory advocates with a span of influence over several international organizations from the United Nations to women advocacy groups worldwide.

All these are not without a central direction and seem to follow the same agenda shown on the Brotherhood’s official website.

Our research will show links from the Muslim Brotherhood’s own website and other media regarding the list. Be tuned in for the next press release and get ready for some serious shock therapy.

FP: Can you please give us an example of one case?

Shoebat: I will give a taste of one case.

Keep in mind the Muslim Brotherhood is Egyptian and so is Huma’s heritage. The Sisterhood List includes wives/daughters of top Brotherhood leaders mostly from Egypt. We have Najla Ali Mahmoud, the wife of Mohammed Aidalmrsi, who is a member of the Guidance Bureau of the Muslim Brotherhood and the current leader of the Justice and Freedom Party, (the new name for the Muslim Brotherhood). No one can deny his affiliation and his wife is definitely following his footsteps.

So what is the leader of the Justice and Freedom Party (Muslim Brotherhood) saying these days under the new guise of moderation? We have volumes to fill worth of doublespeak that would take decades to translate. But perhaps to show how sick these people are: He recently stated on national television as to “why Egypt needs to ban western dress” and “no one with a full mental faculty can believe in the Trinity”. He even condemned Egyptian monuments as “idols”.

Idols? Does this set the stage for what happened to the Bamian Buddha statue in Afghanistan? Will we see the Sphinx be blown up if this party wins? And according to this “moderated” leader, all Christians have a mental deficiency? And he is serious.

This brings us back to Nazism. This is Nazi-style propaganda and nothing more.

We have much-much more to say about this clandestine group called The Sisterhood. So stay tuned.

FP: What do you say in response to those who would say that bringing Huma Abedin into all of this is an unfair and unwarranted “guilt-by-association” tactic?

Shoebat: When westerners say “guilt-by-association” regarding Huma, they are comparing the Middle East with the Middle West. Westerners need to shift gears into the Muslim World and when they do they will begin to comprehend the significance of this connection.

Huma’s links to a family that is directly tied to the Muslim Brotherhood, including her brother and mother, creates a question that no one on earth can easily answer:

Other than Huma Abedin, has there ever been any member of the Muslim Brotherhood or a prominent Islamist who will not openly denounce a “daughter” or “sister” that married a non-Muslim Jewish male?

It is extremely rare to have Muslim women marry non-Muslims, much less to have conservative Muslims look the other way, unless Huma has a “higher calling” and a unique exception was made for her, since she is an ear into top U.S. sensitive information, or Anthony Weiner has converted to Islam or even both.

There is no other way to answer this unless Huma comes up with an astonishing revelation. The highest authority in Islamic Sharia Faculty in Kuwait has deemed Huma’s marriage to a male Jew as null and void, yet no word from her family or the Muslim Brotherhood to affirm the Isamic Sharia Faculty? Huma—keep in mind—was in contact with her mother when she visited Dar Al-Hikma University with Hillary Clinton. Huma’s dress code alone would be a problem for her mother, much less her unequally yoked marriage to a male Jew.

Huma’s marriage should be a stab in the heart to religious Muslims. She comes from a prominent family. It’s like saying a nun stabbed the Pope in the heart, yet the Vatican issues no condemnation and instead was sympathetic to the woman for simply being a woman. Something would be very fishy. Huma’s Muslim Brotherhood connected family still has contacts, admiration and appreciation for her.

FP: Ok, wait a minute. What do you mean exactly by saying that Huma might have a “higher calling”?

Shoebat: The Middle East has already addressed Huma’s “higher calling” long ago while the West slumbers. Take Dr. Mumen Muhammad in a news piece (translated from Arabic) gleefully wrote about Huma:

“Abedin assures in press releases her continuance on the path with Hillary Clinton, even if Clinton failed as a candidate. The candidate’s aids and other influential figures in the Democratic Party assure that they do not disregard Abedin running for election or taking her position in the political arena by the help in successive political administrations with the aid of the Clinton family itself.”

Huma has higher aspirations already to get well entrenched into the system and the Middle East is all but excited while the Brotherhood stays silent.

FP: Look, someskeptics would still say: “So What? Huma is still not a member of the Sisterhood. And that’s that.” How would you respond?

Shoebat: Imagine during World War II, the U.S. government accepted Eva Braun, Hitler’s mistress or one of Hitler’s henchmen daughters to work with our State Department and even be with the Secretary of State 24/7?

After all “Braun” they argue “is not a member of the Nazi Party”; how will that bode with the American people?

FP: H-mm. Ok, well then why is the U.S. State Department not taking this issue seriously?

Shoebat: The U.S. current policy is to gain what they deem a “moderate Muslim Brotherhood.”

This is like saying that in order to win the Cold War with Russia, that we needed to promote “Capitalistic-Communism” or during WWII we should have promoted “pro-Jew Nazism” in Germany.

To take our Nazi example during World War II and compare this to today’s attitude, this policy is as if we decided to engage the Nazis through an inclusion policy in order to moderate them.

This would be a moron inventing an oxymoron.

FP: What would you say to those who would contest that it is not legitimate to compare the Muslim Brotherhood with the Nazis?

Shoebat: It’s not a far-fetched comparison. Americans are rarely educated on the history of the Muslim Brotherhood.

The Muslim Brotherhood was in bed with the Nazis. Hassan Al-Banna was well connected and collaborated with Haj Amin Al-Husseini the Muslim Nazi who was Hitler’s henchman in the Middle East. In fact, and just in case one might think that this is an old issue and that the Muslim Brotherhood no longer takes pride in this dark history—think again—the Muslim Brotherhood takes pride in their Nazi connection, it’s all over their websites. Al-Banna, the Muslim Brotherhood’s Godfather was a friend of Al-Husseini. I should know this and like Tareq Ramadan, Al-Banna’s grandson, Al-Husseini knew my grandfather too.

FP: Ok, so Huma is connected to the Muslim Brotherhood and you have demonstrated that this is a serious problem. So how does this make Hillary look?

Shoebat: Was the State Department not aware of all this? Hardly.

Could someone claim that the State Department was oblivious to what was written publicly in Egyptian newspapers?

The reason for all the silence by the State Department is that the current policy is to engage the Muslim Brotherhood and attempt to include them into what they believe is Moderate Islam.

Hillary knew who Saleha Abedin is; she met with her in Dar-Al-Hikma in Jedda while the Arabic sources made fun of how all the girls at Dar Al-Hikma in Jedda mocked Hillary to her face. Of course only the Arab media covered this.

Was it not Hillary Clinton, the Muslim Brotherhood mule who lifted the ban on Tariq Ramadan? Was it not her who allowed him entry into the United States? Ramadan is the grandson of the founder of the Muslim Brotherhood, the Nazi Hasan al-Banna and has ties to Islamic terrorist groups.

Was it not her husband Bill Clinton that heaped praise on the Naqshabandi Sufi Imam Fethullah Gülen, the Turkish Imam and notorious Islamist conspirator that fled Turkey for the U.S. after attempting to overthrow Turkey’s secular government?

Yet Americans haven’t got beyond the myth that Sufis are not as “peace loving” as they thought. Perhaps they need to watch Naqshabandi Sufist Imam Nazim Kibrisi giving a lecture in Turkish in Germany to Recep Erdogan of Turkey and see how he vowed to “make the West bow to Islam” and yes “by military might.”

Gülen is also Sufi and since Sufis are “peace-loving mystics,” they are given refuge. Gülen even airs his messages on Turkish television on how his followers could best seize power from the Turkish secular government.

But this is an old story; the Islamists have already ceased all the power thereof in Turkey with little to be done in amending the Constitution. What has the U.S. Government done besides passing gossip that later leaked via Wikileaks?

Today, the Muslim Brotherhood has been legalized in Egypt. The AKP Islamist Party in Turkey has become the admiration throughout the Muslim world. Islamists have never seen more opportunity in decades as much as they have seen in 2011 and have accomplished more than in any other time in recent history. The victories are well expressed throughout Middle Eastern news, yet the West seems to only like to address the sex scandals.

FP: I want to return to something you said as it piqued my curiosity. You said that when Hillary met with Saleha Abedin in Dar-Al-Hikma in Jedda, that the Arabic sources made fun of how all the girls there mocked Hillary to her face. Tell us what happened. What were the themes of ridicule about Hillary and why? And how come the western media didn’t report this?

Shoebat: Anyone can put it in ‘Google Translate’Al-Mshhad.net, Nabd and several Arab news agencies reported articles on how Hillary was denounced by many who came to her face point blank and told her off. One of the reports describes the scene:

“Unlike the reports that came out of the New York Times, a group of girls who were educated with high moral values, came out donned with the Palestinian scarf …and after all the orchestrated questions were finished and all the phony photo ops were done…these girls with the Palestinian scarf walked up to the American Secretary of State and spoke to her seriously: ‘We do not respect you. You occupied Iraq and Afghanistan. You struck Pakistan. You support Israel. It would be a shame to get your autograph. We object to your policy’. Then these girls continued one after the other, with the same sentiment objecting to America’s terrorism.”

This was the truth that was kept out by American mainstream media and never told by Hillary.

FP: Alright, so what do you think the media should be investigating and why do you think the U.S. government is silent about all of this?

Shoebat: Jamie, national security should always take precedence over sexual scandals. But it’s not the fault of the media that it wants to feed the demand for gossip. It’s the American people that are concerned more about “diet for the body” then “food for the mind”.

Let me ask: how many agencies are there that monitor what is said in the Middle East? Who is exposing the doublespeak?

Why was I the first to break the truth of Feisal Abdul Rauf Islamist manifesto from his Arabic? Why was I the first to translate from Arabic his open support for terrorism in the Middle East?

Who in the U.S. translated Rashad Hussein’s words to Al-Ahram newspaper in Egypt on how he will intervene to gain president Obama’s ear regarding Iran’s nuclear issues? How many even published the findings?

Why was I the first to translate terrorist Abu Hammam Yusuf Al-Balawi’s blog on how he wanted to detonate and kill American guards? Was that an exaggeration? Conspiracy theory? Indeed he did detonate himself and CIA agents were massacred. Where were the CIA Arabic interpreters? How well can we trust them? What are their affiliations? How have the FBI and police been infiltrated by Islamists?

These are “checkmate” style questions. They are not easily answered and the American people need to start waking up instead of dreaming about sex scandals and tabloids.

FP: Why hasn’t the mainstream media picked it up on this story?

Shoebat: Fact is: Islamists have already conditioned people to be afraid of being labeled with Islamophobia — while during World War II everyone was a proud Nazi-phobe.

Today everyone is afraid of being accused of racism. The Islamists figured it all out long ago and like a typical Arab bazaar, the American naïve “tourist” cannot detect the “terrorist” in plain sight dragging him into his shop of goodies. “Welcome welcome” the Islamist says “you want moderates? We have them, come in just take a look. Moderates in all shapes colors and forms. We have moderates with Hijab, without Hijab, professors, Imams…” and while the tourist thinks he is buying something worthwhile, he is not aware that he is being sold as a slave in the bazaar and only learns when it’s too late.

And the Islamists understand very well how America thinks. They know very well that America is concerned more with racism than anything else. So they made it tight proof for the customer not to escape the bazaar and they question any suspension with: “Are you being racist”?

Yet I am dumbfounded; since when does questioning a religion or an ideology constitute racism? We are a nation that has less racism than anywhere on earth, yet we seem to be discussing it more than anywhere else on earth and yet they rarely discuss it where it truly happens everywhere else on earth, especially in the Muslim World where they exercise more Islamophobia-phobia than anywhere else on earth.

This is a longwinded explanation, but it fits—perfectly.

FP: Walid Shoebat, thank you for joining us today and thank you for being such a courageous warrior for the truth.

Thursday, July 19, 2012

Maj. Gen. Aviv Kochavi warns "The Golan is liable to become an arena of operations against Israel in much the same way the Sinai is today" • Assad has pulled troops out of the Golan to fight the rebels, creating a power vacuum there • Hezbollah's arsenal six times larger than in 2006 war.

Israel Defense Forces Director of Military Intelligence Maj. Gen. Aviv Kochavi on Tuesday warned that global jihadists have moved into Syrian territory bordering the Golan Heights and could soon use the area to stage attacks on Israel.

In a briefing to the Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee, Kochavi said that Islamic terrorists have taken advantage of the chaos created by the Syrian civil war to approach the Golan area.

He said Syrian President Bashar al-Assad has pulled troops out of the Golan to fight rebels in other parts of the country, after concluding that the likelihood of war with Israel at this time is low.

Kochavi's comments were echoed on Wednesday by Strategic Affairs Minister Moshe (Bogie) Ya'alon, himself a former head of military intelligence. Speaking on Army Radio, Ya'alon said Israel should prepare for instability in Syria to reach the Golan Heights.

"Assad is living on borrowed time, he cannot reconstitute his legitimacy to rule, he's crossed the point of no return," Ya'alon added.

Kochavi told lawmakers that a power vacuum has created a possible arena in the Golan Heights for anti-Israel operations, similar to what was happening in Egypt's Sinai region, where the government in Cairo is finding it hard to impose its authority on the desert peninsula.

"The Golan area is liable to become an arena of operations against Israel in much the same way the Sinai is today, and that's a result of the increasing entrenchment of global jihad in Syria," he said.

An increase in suicide bombings and other signature attacks in Syria has led experts to conclude that al-Qaida is taking a role in the uprising against Assad's regime. Though al-Qaida's main targets have been the West and secular Arab regimes, the group has also tried to attack Israel.

Since the overthrow of Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak early last year, terrorists based in Egypt's Sinai have carried out two deadly cross-border raids into Israel and fired several rockets at Israeli territory, and more than 10 terrorist networks based in the Sinai Peninsula have been destroyed recently, Kochavi said.

While Kochavi did not reveal who the terrorists were or who disrupted their networks, he warned the Knesset committee that Islamic terrorists operating out of Sinai would continue in their efforts to create geopolitical crises.

Kochavi said that for Egypt's newly-elected president, Mohammed Morsi, the security situation in Sinai was only a secondary priority, coming after his need to establish his leadership.

"In Egypt there is a clear power struggle between the military and the Islamists. The fact that Egyptian President Morsi is considered the number two man in the Muslim Brotherhood there hurts his confidence to make decisions and obligates him to seek advice from the [Brotherhood's] leadership, which has been kept outside of the president's sphere of power," said Kochavi.

The Israel-Syria border has been mostly quiet since 1974.

Israel, which captured the Golan Heights in the 1967 Six-Day War, has closely monitored the civil war in Syria. While Israel has been careful not to get involved, Israel fears that Assad's formidable arsenal of missiles and chemical weapons could slip into the hands of Hezbollah or other terrorist groups.

Kochavi, repeating the assessment of other Israeli officials, judged Assad's days to be numbered, but he did not estimate how long he would be able to cling to power. "Assad could be in power from anywhere between two months and two years," Kochavi said.

Kochavi showed the panel satellite photographs that he said showed Syrian troops "brutally" firing artillery indiscriminately into an unidentified populated urban area, the meeting participant said. He did not say when or where the attack took place. Kochavi reportedly told the MKs that the Syrian army's brutality was a sign of its frustration at not having better military options against the rebels.

During the civil war in neighboring Syria, Lebanon-based Hezbollah has been supporting the Assad regime, which Israel says has boosted Hezbollah over the years by allowing shipment of Iranian arms through Syrian territory to the Lebanese organization.

Kochavi warned that Hezbollah is preparing for the aftermath of Assad's fall by amassing Iranian weapons.

He estimated Hezbollah now possesses 70,000 to 80,000 missiles and rockets capable of striking Israel — up to six times the number the group possessed before the Second Lebanon War in 2006.